


Six People Who Should Never Have Gone To Hogwarts

by the_bright_eyed_demigirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Order of the Stick
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Multi, all pairings are eventual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_bright_eyed_demigirl/pseuds/the_bright_eyed_demigirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin: the Order of the Stick go to Hogwarts. In which Roy joins Gryffindor to spite his ghost dad, Haley learns to fear Veritaserum, Vaarsuvius puts a mandrake leaf in their mouth, Durkon won't go near the Forbidden Forest for reasons other than the obvious, Elan is the world's most unlikely Ravenclaw, and Belkar tries to adopt the giant squid. Meanwhile, Nale is considering facial hair, Miko has her eyes on becoming a Prefect, and Shojo is wondering where the extra Slytherin dorm came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Letters

**Author's Note:**

> I want it to go on record that I don't know how long this will be, or how regular the updates will be. It'll likely be a series of drabbles with plots threaded in between. Pairings will also be added along the way. British English is being used because it's set in the UK.

Roy’s letter came as no surprise to absolutely anybody in the Greenhilt family.

“Hey big brother,” called Julia through his _locked_ bedroom door, “you got a letter!”

Roy groaned and pulled the covers further over his head. Maybe if he ignored it hard enough, the letter would vanish into thin air. No, better yet, the universe would warp and he would spontaneously become a Squib. That way, there would be absolutely no chance of him ever accidentally blowing someone up while experimenting with magic.

“Come on,” whined his sister, “I wanna read it but Mum says _you_ have to open it!”

“I don’t want it!” he shouted back. “Go throw it in the fireplace or something!”

There was a pause. Roy strained, and could hear Julia and Sara Greenhilt discussing something.

Sara was the one to speak.

“Roy, if you don’t come out and take the letter, I will go in there and I will take that sword off your wall.”

Roy screamed in frustration, but he got up and took the letter anyway, making sure to slam the door in his baby sister’s face as he did so.

He looked at the letter in resignation. It was addressed in elegant emerald ink to Mr Roy Greenhilt, and upon the back was the Hogwarts Seal.

Roy fell back onto his bed with a sigh.

He didn’t want to go.

\---

Haley had decided that it was some kind of over-the-top prank.

For a start, who sealed letters with _wax_ anymore? And who the hell would address a foster kid with both parents missing as “Miss Haley L. Starshine”? This was before she even got to the contents. A _school of magic?_ Yeah, right.

She pondered who might be responsible. Crystal had a motive (messing with Haley), but this really wasn’t her style. She was less subtle than that. Jenny had the style, but no motive.

…Had they worked together?

In the end, Haley decided that it was probably Crystal’s fault, so she got up and barged right into her room.

“Very funny,” she said, “and by your standards, pretty clever.”

Crystal stared at Haley in confusion from her position on her bed. One of her hands twitched towards the kitchen knife which was lodged in her bedside table.

“What’re you talking about, Starshine?”

Haley threw the letter at her. Crystal skimmed it and then threw it back.

“Not me.”

“Then who was it?” Haley crossed her arms. “You’re the only person I know who’d spend this much effort on messing with me.”

“I don’t know! Now get out of my room!”

“Haley! Crystal!”

Crystal quickly snatched her hand away from the knife. Haley turned to see ‘Uncle Bozzok’ standing in the doorway, arms folded. He seemed perplexed.

“Someone’s here to see you, Haley,” he said. “Someone by the name of… ‘Professor Aarandius’?”

\---

“Mum! Mum! I got a letter!” Elan shouted as he ran into the cramped living room.

“Did you, dear?” His mother wasn’t really paying attention. She was focused on pinning her hair for work. Sometime last month she’d realised that she hadn’t been pinning her hair in an optimal fashion and she’d spent most of her free time since that moment trying to fix the problem. Elan thought her hair looked lovely no matter what she did with it, but knew he wouldn’t dissuade her.

“Uh-huh!” He nodded so hard his head almost fell off. “It’s from… ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’. Mum, they say I’m a wizard!”

A crash interrupted him. His mother had gone ghostly pale and dropped her box of pins.

“…Mum?”

She turned to him, eyes sad and afraid.

“Oh, dear…”

Elan’s mother walked over to him and took the letter out of his hands. She read it silently, then sighed and hugged him.

“I can’t stop it,” she said at last. “But dear, please, be _careful…_ ”

\---

Vaarsuvius woke at four in the morning and found that they could not get back to sleep. To be fair, they had been waiting for this day since they were five years old and had managed to accidentally and _permanently_ turn their hair purple. They tossed and turned in bed, and eventually gave up. So, they got up. They paced up and down the hallways. They read a very large book in its entirety. They drank far too much coffee for an eleven-year-old.

Finally, the owl with the letter arrived. Vaarsuvius sprang up from their armchair and practically ripped the letter from the poor bird’s talons.

_Dear Mx Vaarsuvius Ignatus,_

_We are delighted to inform you…_

Vaarsuvius perused the rest of the letter about fifty times before finally setting it down.

Satisfaction tugged at the edges of their mouth.

\---

“Durkon, lad? Ye’ve got a letter.”

Durkon looked up from his breakfast to see his mother walking in, green-inked letter in hand.

“Is it…”

“Aye, I think so.” She smiled and put the letter down in front of him. “But ye’re nae ta open it till ye’ve eaten yer breakfast!”

Durkon had never eaten so fast in his entire life. He would later feel incredibly sick as a result, but he wouldn’t regret it. This was a day he’d been waiting for since the year he’d spent down south, where he’d met a boy who’d explained magic to him.

It’d be nice to see Roy again.

\---

Belkar was having a really, really, really weird day.

First he’d gotten a letter from a school of magic. He would’ve been content to assume that was a hoax, until Professor Shojo had turned up.

“Doesn’t shojo mean girl?” he asked. The care home was silent otherwise. Everyone but Belkar was at school. He’d been suspended.

“You speak Japanese?”

“A bit, yeah.”

Shojo smiled.

“Yes, it does.”

Belkar snorted with laughter.

“Okay, so that aside,” he said after a minute, “what’s this about?”

“I’m going to assume that you read the letter, but that you didn’t believe a word of it.”

Belkar nodded. Shojo reached into his robes and pulled out a long, thin wand. He swished it, flicked it, and brought the point down at Belkar’s shoelaces, which deftly tied themselves together.

Belkar’s jaw dropped.

“Okay, I believe you.” He leant down to untie his laces. “That was freaking _awesome._ When do I start?”

Shojo smiled in satisfaction.


	2. A Fight, Diagonally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elan finds a living mirror of himself, Vaarsuvius makes a friend, and there's a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm never using my tablet to upload things ever again. I apologise for any formatting errors which may have resulted from this folly.

Diagon Alley was in a rush of commotion, as it always was in the weeks before the new school year began. People rushed to and fro. Owls hooted from every nook and cranny, occasionally swooping overhead and making everyone duck. Some of the more disreputable types of people had taken advantage of the chaos to try to hoodwink those less experienced with magic.

Fortunately, Elan's mother was very good at spotting scams.

"Mum!" Elan protested as she literally dragged him away from a man selling 'dragon eyes'.

"We have a schedule to keep to, dear!" She waved it around to enforce her point. "You need to get to that robe shop, but you can't take more than twenty minutes and thirteen seconds!"

Elan nodded."Got it!"

With that, he bounded off towards the robe shop. (Unbeknownst to him, his mother had added five minutes leeway to every item on the schedule to account for 'dawdling'.)

The shop itself was eerily quiet. A woman whom Elan presumed was Madam Malkin was fussing over a boy whom Elan couldn't see properly. She looked up when she heard the door open and smiled.

"First-year? Well, welcome, come up here and I'll measure you up..." She trailed off slightly, glanced between Elan and the other boy, and shrugged.

Elan stepped up onto the stool besides the other boy, who was examining his fingernails. Madam Malkin immediately set to work measuring him.

"Are you new too?" Elan asked the boy after a minute. The boy looked up and almost made Elan fall off his chair. It was like looking into a mirror. "Wow, you look like me!"

"...So I do." The other boy seemed as astonished as Elan felt. "What's your name?"

"I'm Elan." He stuck out his hand, because that was the polite thing to do.

"Nale." He took Elan's hand and shook it. "And yes, I'm new."

"Cool!"

Nale smiled and dropped Elan's hand. "So, uh... what house do you think you'll be in?"

"I don't know...?" Hogwarts had houses? The letter hadn't mentioned that!

"Oh, well I guess no one does really." Nale's smile wavered very slightly. "Well, I think you're forwards enough for Gryffindor - personally, I'm aiming for Slytherin..."

Before Elan could inquire more about the houses, there came a huge burst of yells from the street outside. This time he really did fall off his chair. Nale was craning to look.

"Oh, wow," he said, "I think there's a fight!"

\---

_Moments earlier..._

Vaarsuvius was having a very good day. After far too much time waiting, they finally had books of magic, a cauldron and (of course) a magic wand. Ten inches, ebony, with a core of dragon heartstring. Perfect.

They had just been wandering past Eeylops, considering an owl, when they had walked into something at waist height and been knocked over.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, purple!"

Vaarsuvius looked up to see that they'd walked into (and knocked over) a person. The boy's face said that he was the same age as Vaarsuvius, but good god, he was tiny!

"I rather think that I am easier to spot than you are," Vaarsuvius grumbled, picking themself up off the floor. The boy went red with anger.

"What was that?"

"You heard me the first time." Vaarsuvius leant down to pick up their things, but the boy took advantage of this to grab Vaarsuvius by the collar.

"Listen, miss Tall - "

"Not 'miss'," Vaarsuvius snapped. "Unhand me."

"Okay, fine, mister Tall - "

"Not 'mister' either." Vaarsuvius smirked at the confusion on the boy's face.

That was a mistake. The boy went even redder and literally punched the smirk off the taller child's face. It was a good hit. Vaarsuvius, who had the approximate strength of a dry worm, was knocked down and landed on their back. The entire street stopped in place.

"Why, you - !"

The boy laughed. Vaarsuvius snarled and kicked his legs out, making him fall on his face. The crowd "oohed" in sympathy. The boy scrambled up and moved to grab Vaarsuvius by the neck, but he was too slow. Vaarsuvius punched him in the face, hard.

His response was to bite Vaarsuvius's hand.

Vaarsuvius screeched and kicked him in the stomach. That made him break his bitehold, but - 

"Och, stop!"

"Hey! What's going on?"

Two other boys ran in, pushing the gathered crowd aside. One was an athletic-looking boy with dark skin, while the other was a stocky Scot. The taller boy grabbed the biter and pulled him away from Vaarsuvius.

"Let me go, I was winning!"

Someone grabbed Vaarsuvius from behind and pulled them up. They turned to see a chubby red-haired girl wearing oversized Muggle clothing.

"C'mon, V, let's go!"

This was when Vaarsuvius noticed that the girl was carrying all of Vaarsuvius's dropped possessions. Before they could question her on this, the girl dragged Vaarsuvius down the street, away from the still-shouting biter.

"Who was that guy?" the girl asked when she finally stopped outside Gringott's.

"I have no idea. How do you know my first initial?"

"There's a name written on your bag." The girl tossed the offending article to Vaarsuvius. "Look - you're a first-year, right?"

"Yes..." Was this girl an older student? She didn't look it.

"Don't get into fights before you even start, then!" The girl threw up her hands. "Now everyone knows you can't throw a punch."

Vaarsuvius scowled.

"Are there many instances of physical combat at Hogwarts, then?"

The girl shrugged.

"No idea. I'm a first-year too. I just know a lot about first impressions." She smiled. "For future reference, thumb on the outside. That way it's less likely to get broken by the force. Put all of your weight behind it, not just your arm, and aim for the nose."

"I see." There was a pause, then Vaarsuvius smiled. "Thank you for the advice, ah...?"

The girl hesitated before replying.

"Haley Starshine. Nice to meet you, V. You want ice cream?"

\---

"Let me go!"

Roy did so, dropping Belkar on his ass.

"Not like that!"

"What was that all about?" Roy asked, genuinely curious.

Belkar shrugged and stood up.

"They walked into me, then acted like an dick."

"So ye bit them?" 

"No, I punched them, then I bit them after they hit me back."

"Ah."

"Didn't your mother tell you not to bite people?" Roy asked incredulously.

"No. She died before she could."

Roy went pale. Durkon coughed. Belkar took advantage of the awkward silence to duck back into the crowd and disappear.

"Whoops."

"Aye, whoops."

"I really hope that neither he nor the purple one are in my house," Roy said with a grimace.

"Or, Thor forbid, both o' them?"

"Don't even." Roy shook his head. "With my luck, I'd end up responsible for both of them..."

\---

"Mum, Mum, did you see the fight?"

Elan's mother was checking her wristwatch.

"Twenty-four minutes, thirty-two seconds... No," she replied, "what happened?"

"I dunno, I didn't see." The two were rushing now to Ollivander's. "But my friend said two kids were fighting!"

"Oh, well - your friend?"

"Yeah! I met him in the robe shop. He's starting this year too. He said his dad was waiting for him, so he had to go... but here's the weird bit, Mum!"

"Weird bit?"

"He looks just like me! We're identical! Isn't that weird... Mum, why are you spluttering?"


	3. The Sorting Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Roy pisses off his dad, and the sons of Tarquin realise that they might be related. Haley surprises everyone, and Vaarsuvius still has bite marks on their hand.

“Mum, I want to go!”

“In a couple of years, Julia.”

The Greenhilt family had gathered on Platform 9 ¾ to see a still-unenthusiastic Roy off. His belongings had already been stowed, and all that remained was for him to get on the train himself and go. He was, naturally, dragging his heels about this.

“You can swap places with me if you want,” he told Julia. Sara Greenhilt glared at him. “Just kidding.”

“Say hi to Dad for me,” Julia replied.

“I will.”

The sound of the whistle blowing caught Roy’s attention. He jumped up onto the train, giving his mother one last kiss goodbye, and stepped into the nearest empty compartment to wave to his family.

As the train pulled away from the platform, Roy became aware that the compartment was not, in fact, empty.

“That’s your family?”

Roy looked to see Belkar sitting across from him, cross-legged and bare-footed on the seating.

“Yeah.”

“Where’s your dad?”

Roy smiled.

“See, you’re trying to get back at me for what I said about your mother – which, for the record, I apologise for – but it won’t work.”

“No?”

“My dad was awful. I never liked him. So if you’re trying to get to me, tough luck.”

Belkar sighed.

“Damn it.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Belkar Bitterleaf.”

“Roy Greenhilt.”

The compartment door swung open.

“Hey, Durkon.”

“Durkon?” Belkar snorted with laughter and earnt a glare from both of his companions. “Who calls their kid Durkon?”

Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Who calls their kid Belkar?”

“…Okay, point taken.”

Durkon sat down next to Roy, looking at Belkar suspiciously. The smaller boy glared at him, then turned to look out the window. They had long since left King’s Cross behind. The countryside was starting to spring up all around them.

Roy was about to ask Durkon how his mother was when the door slid open again. A blond boy with a goofy smile had appeared.

“Sorry! But can I sit here? Everywhere else is full!”

Damn, it was hard to say no to a smile that charming, even if it _was_ goofy as hell. Roy gestured for the blond boy to come in. He sat down next to Belkar, who did not look impressed.

“Thanks! I’m Elan.”

“I’m Roy,” said the named, “this is my friend Durkon, and the grumpy short guy is Belkar.”

“Hey, boys, room for two more?”

The four boys turned to see a chubby red-haired girl and –

“Oh no, not _you,_ ” Belkar groaned when he saw the purple-haired kid with whom he’d had a fight. The kid looked equally unhappy to see Belkar. They looked as though they had smelt something awful, so wrinkled was their nose.

“Miss Starshine, is there really no other compartment? I would rather not reside in this one.”

“Wow,” said Belkar, “you are _seriously_ pretentious.”

The redhead glared and grabbed her friend by the collar, forcing them down into the seat next to Durkon. She then slammed the compartment door shut and sat next to Elan. It looked as though she was about to introduce herself, but then she turned to Elan, went red, and faced the other way.

“Are you okay?” Elan asked.

“Miss Starshine?”

“… _anyway_ ,” said Roy, “who are you two?”

“I am Vaarsuvius,” said the purple-haired kid, “and my friend here is Haley Starshine.”

Haley Starshine turned back to the group at the mention of her name. She had apparently gotten control of her face back.

“I’m Roy, and this is Durkon – ”

“Nice ta meet ye.”

“ – Belkar – ”

“Come near me and I’ll bite you again, purple.”

“ – and Elan.”

“Hi!”

“Were you all already acquainted with each other?” Vaarsuvius asked curiously. “You seem in my limited experience to be very different sorts of people.”

“Roy an’ I have been friend fer years,” Durkon answered. “Me dad were a wizard, but me mam never told me tha’, so I dinnae know what were happening tae me ‘till Roy explained it. But I dinnae know these other two.”

“We _did_ already meet Belkar, though,” Roy added. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Yeah, you broke up that fight, didn’t you?” Haley said.

“Fight…?” It was like a light bulb had gone on over Elan’s head. “Oh! That was you guys?”

Vaarsuvius scowled and showed the group their hand, which still had light bruising on it from the bite. Belkar saw it and laughed. Roy shot him a glare, but this didn’t stop the laughter. Vaarsuvius pulled their hand back into their long sleeve.

“I must, regardless of my personal dislike of you, congratulate you upon the strength of your jaw,” they added.

“Cheers. You punch like a girl.”

“Oh?” Vaarsuvius raised an eyebrow. “I have since been instructed on how to actually throw a punch, _by a girl._ Would you like to rephrase that?”

Belkar glanced nervously at Haley, who was cracking her knuckles. He gulped.

“Yeah, uh… you can’t punch for shit.”

Elan gasped.

“ _Belkar_! That was a bad word! You can’t say that!”

Belkar rolled his eyes.

“Oh c’mon blondie, are you really _that_ much of a mummy’s boy?”

“Hey, my mum is great.” Elan crossed his arms. “She made me sandwiches for the train journey!”

Durkon, thankfully, had worked out precisely how to defuse the situation at hand. Between Vaarsuvius and Belkar things had already turned sour – they didn’t need Belkar to antagonise anyone else.

“Thar’s a point. Family. Am I ta take it yer mam ain’t a witch, Elan?”

“Huh? She’s, um, a ‘Muggle’. That’s what that’s called, right?” Elan looked around. “What about the rest of you?”

“I’d be surprised if either of _my_ parents were magic,” Haley said. “I mean, if my dad was a wizard he probably wouldn’t be in jail right now.”

The fact that Haley’s father was in jail was, tactfully, commented upon by none present. Instead, Vaarsuvius spoke up.

“I must buck the trend,” they said, “for both of my parents were wixen, as were all of my ancestors in memory – with a couple of exceptions.”

“Oh god,” Roy groaned, “you aren’t one of those stuck-up purebloods, are you?”

“Certainly not. Yourself?”

“Mum’s a halfblood, dad was pure,” he replied, “which I think _technically_ makes me half, but I might be wrong.”

 “Well, my mum wasn’t a witch, and I _really_ don’t know anything about my dad, so I guess… what’s the word?” Belkar looked around the compartment for someone with an answer.

“’Muggleborn’,” Roy answered.

“Yeah, that, thanks.”

The remainder of the journey passed swiftly. Belkar and Vaarsuvius spent most of it trading jabs at one another, which Roy found himself having to shut down (much to his annoyance). Elan found himself telling stories about strange things that had happened to him as a result of accidental magic, such as the time that he made everyone think his school was haunted. He’d been making the instruments in the music room play when he got distracted without realising it. Haley was enraptured by these stories, and told him about the time she’d turned her hair black by accident.

“Well, at least _that_ was apparently reversible,” Vaarsuvius grumbled.

“I were wonderin’ aboot yer hair,” Durkon said. “How did ye even do tha’?”

“I have no idea.” They had gone as red as the Muggle jumper which they’d worn to the station. “Oh, I think we’re almost there.”

“Nice save,” Belkar muttered. Then he looked out the window. “Hey, they’re right!”

The six of them got up and put on their robes with varying degrees of reluctance. Elan tripped over himself three times, while Roy spent a good minute and a half just staring at his robe.

\---

“So why _boats?_ ” Elan asked. He had found himself in a boat with Roy. Belkar was with Durkon, and Haley with Vaarsuvius (who looked decidedly unhappy about having to row).

“It’s a tradition,” Roy explained. “My dad told me it was set up by the founders themselves, as a unique way of welcoming new students.”

“Your dad knows a lot about Hogwarts, then?”

“He should. He haunts the place.”

Elan went pale.

“ _Haunts…?_ ”

Over on Belkar and Durkon’s boat, the former was staring down at the lake.

“I wonder if there’s any fish in there,” he said idly to himself. “I mean, there’s gotta be a few.”

“Aye, I think thar’s a squid in there,” Durkon said unbidden. “Or at least, tha’s what I’ve heard.”

“A _squid_?” Belkar peered further over the side and almost fell in. Vaarsuvius, who was watching, laughed. Haley punched them lightly on the shoulder.

As it turned out, Vaarsuvius was not the only person laughing. Right next to Belkar and Durkon’s boat was Elan’s doppelganger. He was chuckling at Belkar. Sitting next to him in the boat was a girl with long, curly hair (also laughing), and a boy who simply could _not_ have been _eleven._ He was huge!

“Elan…? Weren’t ye in tha other boat?”

This time Elan almost fell out of his boat.

“Hi Nale!” He waved at his friend from the robe shop

Nale turned and waved back.

“Hello again!”

“Whoa,” said the girl in Nale’s boat, “you guys are practically identical.”

“Are you related?” Vaarsuvius asked.

“I doubt it,” said Nale, “we’ve met once before this and that was in Diagon Alley.”

The boats came to a stop at the shore below Hogwarts. Long, narrow steps led up to a door leading to the castle itself. Everything seemed very solemn now, as did the man who stood on the bottom step. He wore a long blue robe and was covered in scars. There was an aura of pure intimidation around him, and many of the more nervous students (including Elan) looked at their feet.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” the scarred wizard said with a smile. “My name is Professor O-Chul; please, follow me.”

Professor O-Chul gestured for the group to follow him up the steps, and after a moment of hesitation, they all did. It was somewhat chilly down below the school. Vaarsuvius in particular felt chilly, and wrapped their cloak around them more securely.

The large group made their way into the school, through winding corridoors and up numerous flights of stairs, until they reached the large wooden doors that led to the Great Hall. A large commotion could be heard through the doors. Within, people were greeting old friends, speculating about the new students, and placing bets on who the _first_ person that Professor Greenhilt would send to detention would be.

Professor O-Chul stopped before the doors and turned to speak to the students once more.

“Through here,” he said, “is the Great Hall. Here, we will conduct the Sorting Ceremony, where you will be split up into four houses. Those who are brave and noble will find themselves in Gryffindor; the wise and creative in Ravenclaw; the ambitious and cunning in Slytherin; and the loyal and hard-working in Hufflepuff. For the next seven years, these houses will be your family. You will care for your housemates; they will care for you.”

Elan breathed a sigh of relief at hearing the explanation of the houses. Nale gave him a funny look, but said nothing.

Professor O-Chul turned and waved his wand once. The doors of the Great Hall swung open, and the students within fell silent. The first-years were led out into the hall, which –

“ _Whoa,_ ” said Haley under her breath.

It truly was a _great_ hall. Regardless of where they had come from, all of the new students were gazing around in awe at the flying candles, the starry ceiling, and the gorgeous decorations. At the head of the room was a vast set of windows, before which was a long table where the teachers sat. (Or in one case, floated.) Weirdly enough, a white cat was sitting on the table.

“Who’s the old guy in the middle?” Elan said quietly.

“That’s Professor Shojo,” Belkar answered. “Cool dude, let me tell you. He was the one to explain everything to me.”

In front of the table where the teachers sat was an old stool with an extremely battered-looking hat upon it. It looked suspiciously like someone had set the hat on fire at some point. Knowing wizards? Someone probably _had._

Things got even stranger, if that was possible, when a rip around the bottom of the hat opened and began to _sing._ Belkar’s jaw dropped in disbelief. Roy shook his head. Elan quickly caught the tune and began humming along, to Nale’s amusement. When the song ended, the older students all clapped, as did Elan. (After a moment, Haley began clapping too. Vaarsuvius looked at her like she’d grown a second head.)

Professor O-Chul had obtained a long scroll from seemingly nowhere during the song, which he unfurled without a hint of drama. He cleared his throat, and began to read names from the list. One by one, the called students stepped up to the stool and sat on it. The scarred Professor would place the hat upon their head, then the hat itself would speak – Gryffidor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin or Hufflepuff.

It didn’t take long to reach the name, “Bitterleaf, Belkar”.

Belkar stepped up and, with a little trouble, pulled himself up onto the chair. The hat dropped over his eyes and blocked out his sight.

“Hmm,” said a voice in his ear, “you have a hint of loyalty about you, but truth be told, your cunning is more than enough for _SLYTHERIN!_ ”

The Slytherin table erupted in cheers as Belkar left the hat behind and went to sit down. He found that he got his hand shaken about fifty times before the chaos died down and Professor O-Chul read the next name.

A few names later;

“Greenhilt, Roy!”

Roy glanced at the High Table as he walked up. Float-sitting on one of the chairs was the ghost of his father, whom he had loathed for many, many years. He knew exactly what Eugene Greenhilt expected of him.

 _Screw that,_ he thought as he sat down, _screw that._

“Another Greenhilt?” mused the hat. “There’s been quite a few of you over the years. Many of you the same as the others… given your mind, I think I shall place you in – ”

 _Gryffindor,_ Roy thought at the hat. _Put me in Gryffindor, not Ravenclaw, please._

This did not phase the hat in the slightest.

“Very well; GRYFFINDOR!”

As soon as the hat was off, Roy glanced back at his father. He was overjoyed to see the look of rage and confusion on Eugene’s face. Filled with satisfaction, he went and sat down at the Gryffindor table.

“Ignatius, Vaarsuvius!”

Vaarsuvius received a number of odd glances as they walked up, for their odd name, their odder hair, and their androgyny. This did not phase them in the slightest. They had been expecting it. What they had _not_ been expecting was that the hat wouldn’t even have to be fully on their head before it would shout “SLYTHERIN!”

Belkar groaned and sank down in his seat. Vaarsuvius sat across from him, confused.

“I was certain of Ravenclaw,” they admitted.

“Why couldn’t you have been _right_?”

Professor O-Chul read through the next names, with students being sent evenly to each house, until he reached a name which was very familiar to some: “Starshine, Haley!”

Haley moved up to the stool quickly, feeling very uncomfortable with the idea of a mind-reading hat. It didn’t help that the hat took a long time to read her.

“You’re certainly cunning,” it said to her, “but you lack ambition for yourself. You have cleverness, though perhaps not wisdom. And yes you’re brave, but only when you have no other option than to be brave… I think, on the whole, you would fit best of all in HUFFLEPUFF!”

The Hufflepuffs cheered as Haley went down to join them, slightly confused as to why she was in the house of the _loyal._ But that soon didn’t matter, because the name after hers was “Tarquinson, Elan!”

Nale spluttered upon hearing Elan’s surname. His curly-haired friend (“Iferna, Sabine”) shot Elan an extremely confused look from the Slytherin table. Elan himself did not notice this, and bounded happily up to be sorted.

“Hm,” said the hat. “You think strangely; your thought process is a little confused. And yet, there is a strange wisdom in that. Your point of view is deeper than people think.”

 _Thank you,_ thought Elan politely. That had been a compliment, right?

“Yes, I think you have the potential to make an excellent RAVENCLAW!”

Elan almost forgot to take the hat off when he ran down to join the Ravenclaws. He smiled cheerfully at his new housemates, and hoped that he’d get on with them all.

“Tarquinson, Nale!”

Elan’s jaw dropped.

Nale sat calmly on the chair, eyes fixed upon Elan before the hat blocked out his view. To Elan’s disappointment, the hat decided to put Nale in Slytherin, where he joined Sabine.

“Thundershield, Durkon!”

Durkon strode up calmly and sat down on the stool.

“You are not hard to read,” the hat said. “HUFFLEPUFF!”

Durkon walked down and joined Haley, who was looking strangely at Elan.

“That was _weird_ ,” she said. “They’re identical, and they have the same surname? Are we seriously dealing with long-lost twins?”

“I did nae think tha’ actually happened in real life,” Durkon confessed.

The last few names were read through, with a boy who looked strongly like Professor Shojo ending up in Gryffindor with Roy. Then, Professor O-Chul picked up the hat and the stool and walked off to put them away. There was then an awkward silence. It was ended by Professor Shojo seemingly waking up for the first time in the entire ceremony.

“Ah! Welcome, then, to all of our new first-years – and welcome back to the older students, of course…” Professor Shojo glanced at the cat that was sitting on the table next to him. It meowed. “Mr Scruffy, it seems, has nothing to say. So let us eat!”

There was a round of applause, though the new students were all completely weirded out by the cat. Then they were distracted by the masses of food that had just appeared on the tables. Belkar’s jaw dropped and he immediately began piling as much as he could onto his plate.

“Hungry?” said Vaarsuvius amusedly.

“Famished. Hey, blondie number two,” Belkar said, “are you _sure_ you aren’t related to Elan?”

Nale was staring over at the Ravenclaw table, absolutely thunderstruck.

“No,” he admitted at last, “not any more. It just seems like too much of a coincidence – Sabine, I was about to take some of those potatoes, now they’re all gone!”

“Hush, Nale, the plates regenerate…”

Over on the Gryffindor table, Roy was smirking at the thought that he’d gotten one over on his dad.

“I can’t help but notice,” said a second-year girl sitting nearby, “that you have the same surname as Professor Greenhilt.”

Roy looked up. The girl in question had long dark hair and was extremely pretty, in a dangerous sort of way.

“He’s my dad.”

“I see.”

“He didn’t look happy when you got sorted into Gryffindor,” commented the boy who looked like Professor Shojo (“Wakahisa, Hinjo”).

Roy laughed. “Pretty much all of my family has been sorted into Ravenclaw for generations, and he expected that from me. But I don’t want to be anything like him, so here I am in Gryffindor.”

The older girl’s eyes narrowed.

“Well,” she said, “that’s certainly daring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, hence the delay. Sorry!


	4. Requirement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nale talks to Elan about things, and some teachers are met. Also? Bad puns.

“I mean, _Defence Against the Dark Arts!_ Doesn’t that just _sound_ cool?”

“Ye have ta admit, tha lad’s got a point…”

“I don’t know, Charms just sounds more useful to me.”

It was a couple of minutes before the start of the first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson for the new Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Elan had taken one look at the timetable and declared this the ‘coolest lesson _ever_ ’. He was now trying to convince Haley and Durkon of that.

“There’s a difference between _cool_ and _useful,_ ” he said, “and anyway, usually things that are cool end up being useful too!”

“Maybe, but – ”

The lights went out and the shutters went down, plunging the entire classroom into pitch darkness. Elan squeaked in fear. Haley went completely still amidst the cacophony of shouting, scared students.

“What’s going on?”

“Why is it so dark?”

“ _Quiet!”_

Haley was half-out of her desk, head tilted to listen through the darkness. After a moment, her head jerked up, looking at where there was a currently-unseeable balcony.

“Someone’s up there.”

“Indeed I am. _Lumos_.”

A spark of light illuminated the speaker, who was certainly on the balcony. He did not, however, look like a wizard. He was wearing a battered leather coat over rather Muggle-like clothes. His hair was long and grey, and he had an impressive moustache. In one hand he was holding his wand, at the end of which was a point of light. The wizard waved his wand again, and the lights came back on.

Haley sat back into her seat, still on edge. Elan’s jaw was on the desk.

The wizard smiled and extinguished his wand, walking quickly down the stairs to the desk at the front of the classroom. He cast an interested gaze over all of them.

“I, as you may have guessed, am Professor Julio Scoundrèl.” He smiled, and most of the girls in the class sighed. “I am the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher here at Hogwarts… you could say I got the job through practical experience. Now, question one! Can anyone tell me what the point of that exercise was?”

No one put up their hands.

“I see; I’ll have to _illuminate_ the situation myself.”

Elan clapped a hand over his mouth to smother his laughter. Haley and Durkon both rolled their eyes. Most of the class groaned. Professor Scoundrèl chuckled at his own terrible joke and moved on.

“The point of that was that dark forces – ” more groans “ – can strike at any time and out of nowhere. Most people go through their lives without ever having to deal with dark magic. Unfortunately, you never know if you will or not until it happens. Unless you go looking for it, anyway. My job is to prepare you in case it _does_ happen.”

The point had been made, despite the awful puns.

Later, as the class were walking to their next subject, Elan was gushing endlessly about Professor Scoundrèl and his myriad charms.

“I _knew_ this would be the coolest lesson!”

“I could’ve done without the puns,” Haley grumbled. “Although… I guess they were kind of funny.”

Elan beamed at Haley, who went a bit pink. Durkon was about to say something about this, when an older student with extremely curly black hair walked up.

“Hey, you’re Elan, right?” he said. Something about him seemed familiar…

“Um, yeah.”

The older student handed Elan a sealed envelope. “Message for you.” Before Elan could say anything else, the student walked off.

Elan stared after the older student, then peeled the letter open. It was written in a neat hand, and read as follows:

_Elan,_

_I think we have to talk, and soon. Can you go to the seventh floor of the castle at six pm, after dinner? There’s a room across from the tapestry labelled ‘Barnaby the Barmy’. To find it, you need to walk past the bare wall three times, thinking ‘I need to talk to Nale’. Make sure no one sees you do this._

_I’ll see you there._

_\- Nale Tarquinson_

The name was signed in an elegant, extravagant hand. It was as if Nale was a famous celebrity, giving his autograph to a diehard fan.

“I wonder what that’s about?” Elan asked no one in particular.

“Pro’lly the fact tha ye’re identical an’ have tha same surname,” Durkon answered.

“I dunno,” Elan said, “it’s a big coincidence, but not big enough for a private chat in a secret room…”

Haley and Durkon stared at him.

“What?”

\---

It was a general rule at Hogwarts that a lesson shared by Slytherins and Gryffindors was only ever going to cause trouble. The two houses simply did not get on. This was, of course, a point that Roy had been concerned about when he saw that he first lesson was with the Slytherins…

…but now he had other concerns.

Like the fact that he was stuck in between Belkar and Vaarsuvius, who _still_ didn’t get on.

Or the fact that this was a Charms lesson.

And his _dad_ was the Charms teacher.

Frankly, he was starting to regret the whole ‘ask the hat to put me in Gryffindor’ thing.

Oh well. He’d made his bed, and now he was having to lie in it.

“So your dad dies,” Belkar summarised, “and instead of moving on peacefully, he decides to hang around and shout at kids for all eternity.”

“Pretty much.” Roy sighed. “It’s part of the reason I kind of hoped I was a Squib.”

“Oh, surely he cannot be _that_ bad,” Vaarsuvius said. “I mean, really.”

Roy shot Vaarsuvius a long-suffering look which told Vaarsuvius all they needed to hear. Belkar chuckled and set about trying to carve his initials into the desk with a quill.

“Don’t do that.”

Belkar yelped and dropped his quill. A series of gasps ran through the classroom, and a couple of Muggleborn students nearly shrieked. Roy’s head whipped around so fast you’d think he would have snapped his neck. Professor Eugene Greenhilt had phased through the wall next to the three of them. He looked almost amused at Belkar’s impromptu graffiti.

The amusement faded when he spotted Roy next to Belkar.

Professor Greenhilt floated over the heads of that row of students to the front of the (now completely silent) class. Roy glared at him the entire way. Belkar shrugged and went back to carving his initials.

“You’re the new students?” Greenhilt said with an air of resignation. “All right, then. I am Professor Greenhilt, and I will be teaching you all Charms this year. And yes, I’m _dead,_ well done for noticing that.”

He smiled wryly at the astonished faces of the class, before pulling out his wand and flipping the register scroll open with a flick of his wrist.

Roy spent the entire lesson scowling.

\---

“Roy, lad,” said Durkon at dinner, having moved over to the Gryffindor table to talk to his friend, “be thar any secrets rooms in Hogwarts?”

“Uh, there’s meant to be a few, yeah,” Roy replied, poking at his food. “Why?”

“Elan gotta letter earlier tellin’ him ta go ta a room across from a tapestry on that seventh floor, but the way to get thar was a bit odd, so I went ta look an’ there was no such room thar at all.”

“Huh.” Roy set his fork down and pushed his plate away. “There’s probably a secret door there, or something. Who sent the letter?”

“Nale.”

“…the guy who looks exactly like him?”

“Aye.”

“Strange,” Roy said. “If this was just a chat about how they’re probably related, why would Nale ask to meet him in a secret room…?

This had not occurred to Elan. Many things did not occur to Elan that would have occurred to most people. Then again, many things occurred to Elan that wouldn’t occur to anyone else on the planet. The point was that Elan was not in the habit of finding the behaviour of other people suspicious, and this occasion was no exception.

He pulled the letter out again and checked it.

“Barnaby the Barmy,” he quoted, looking at the tapestry next to him. Yep, that tapestry was labelled Barnaby the Barmy. Elan turned to see that there was no door across from the tapestry itself.

He glanced up and down the corridor, checking that there was no one around. The only person nearby was an older boy with messy, dark hair and a uniform that was too small for him. The older boy wasn’t looking anywhere near Elan.

Elan quickly walked past the wall three times. No door appeared. He checked the letter again, smacked his forehead, and walked past thinking _I need to talk to Nale._

This time, a small, plain door materialised in the stone of the wall. Elan looked down the corridor – the dark-haired boy hadn’t seen him. He quickly opened the door and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, good, you found it.”

Elan turned to find himself in what looked suspiciously like part of a café. There was one small, round table in the middle of the room, with two chairs either side. Set against the walls were cabinets filled with every flavour of tea imaginable (as well as some Elan had never imagined). To the side was a counter with a teapot, a sink, and a large quantity of teacups. A jug of milk sat next to the teapot. Nale was sitting on one of the chairs, sipping from one of the teacups.

“Cool, a secret room with tea!”

“Fancy a cup?”

“Um…” Elan felt himself go red. “I like coffee, actually…”

To Elan’s surprise, a cup of coffee appeared on the table. Nale spluttered upon seeing it.

“Well, I didn’t know the room did _that,_ ” he confessed. “Come on, sit down.”

Elan did so, picking up the cup of coffee and sipping it. It was just the way he liked it – more cream than bean, with far too much sugar. He’d never been able to stand bitter things.

“Mmmm! So what’s this about?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Um… we look similar?”

Nale set his teacup down. “Similar? Elan, we’re _identical._ Literally – I can’t even see too much of a difference in our _hairstyles._ Plus we have the same surname. Tarquinson – not exactly common, is it?”

“I guess not…”

“On that topic – Elan, have you ever met your father?”

Elan looked sadly down at the table. A vague memory stirred in the back of his mind, of a man with blond hair and dark clothes. It came up whenever he thought of his father, but he wasn’t even sure if it was real.

“No,” he said at last. “My mum never talks about him, and there aren’t any pictures of him in my house.”

“Curious. I never met my mother. My father refuses to even let her be mentioned. Bit of an interesting co-incidence, don’t you think?”

“Huh?”

Nale resisted the urge to smack Elan around the head until he got the point.

“I think we might be related. Twins, heck.”

Elan considered it through a sip of coffee.

“Okay.”

“You accepted that quickly.”

“It’s like in a storybook, though!” Elan replied with a grin. “I mean, first I get a letter from a school of magic, then I _go_ to a school of magic, and now I have a long-lost brother or something! It’s so cool!”

Nale chuckled and sipped some more tea.

“It kind of is, isn’t it?”

He’d just set his teacup down when Elan sprang up and hugged him hard. Nale froze in surprise for a moment, then realised that Elan was trying very hard not to cry. His face softened, and he hugged his long-lost twin back, smiling despite himself.

After a moment, Elan let go, still smiling. He sat back down in his chair.

“So c’mon, Nale!” he said. “We’ve got eleven years to catch up on! What did I miss?”

Nale chuckled, befuddled by Elan’s enthusiasm.

“Well,” he began, “our father, who raised me, was one of the most, eh, _interesting_ wizards of modern times…”

\---

The black-haired student watched Elan step through the doors of the Room of Requirement. She waited until the door had vanished entirely, then changed. Choppy short hair became long and curly, and she shrank by several inches.

Sabine wasn’t sure why Nale was so keen on keeping his talks with Elan secret, but if half the things she’d heard about Tarquin were true, she didn’t _want_ to know. So if Nale wanted a secret kept, she’d help.

After all, what’s the point of being a Metamorphmagus if you don’t _use_ your powers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for how long this took. Blame university.


	5. In the Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haley comes up with an extremely bad (and illegal) plan.

The next couple of weeks passed relatively smoothly. The tale of the Tarquinson twins shot through the Hogwarts grapevine like a lightning bolt. Soon, everyone knew. After the novelty of such a storybook incident wore off, things returned essentially to normal for the twins.

Except that they now had each other.

Which was going to take a lot of getting used to.

Otherwise, the weeks passed with little incident until Belkar got thrown in detention on his third week at Hogwarts for not doing his History of Magic homework.

“In my defence, it’s boring as shit,” he’d explained to Roy. “I never liked Muggle history either.”

“Belkar, you can’t just _not do_ your work.”

“Uh, I just did, Roy. Get with the program.”

“You know what I mean.” Roy waved a hand dismissively. “I hate Charms, but I’m still going to do my work.”

“…your dad’s the teacher.”

“Not the point! Look, if you’re finding it that hard, why don’t you ask someone to help you?”

Belkar kicked Roy in the shin.

“I never said I was finding it hard, dickhead.”

Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Prove it.”

Thirty minutes later, Roy was sitting in the library with Belkar, unable to believe that his trick had actually worked. The shorter boy was peering over his History of Magic textbook, _actually doing his homework._ Roy had a funny feeling that this wouldn’t work twice. He kind of hoped it would. Despite the other boy’s foul attitude and dislike for everyone he met, Roy felt slightly responsible for him.

“So… do goblins rebel a lot, then?”

Roy looked up from his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook. It was surprisingly interesting for a textbook. Then again, it _had_ been written by Professor Scoundrèl.

“About once every hundred or so years.”

Belkar flipped the page and made an interested noise.

“So all these pictures of the goblin rebels have them being led by a dude in a red cloak.”

“Huh?” Roy got out his own textbook and flipped through the illustrations. Sure enough, Belkar was right. Every single goblin rebel leader had worn a red cloak.

“It could just be a goblin thing… what are you _doing?_ ”

Belkar had put his book to one side and was folding parchment.

“I’m making paper planes. Someone showed me how to make ‘em fly. Do you think I can hit the Blondies over there without them noticing me?”

“I seriously hate you.”

\---

“I want one.”

“Lass, _nae._ ”

“It’s a pot plant that releases brightly-coloured spores in the face of anyone who touches it wrong. I _want_ one.”

“What would ye e’en do wit it?”

“Put it in Crystal’s room, duh.”

Durkon and Haley were wandering through the many halls of Hogwarts, on their way back to the Hufflepuff common room. They had just had a very interesting Herbology lesson.

“I dinnae think yer allowed ta take magic plants ta tha rooms o’ Muggles, lass. Sorry.”

“Awww…”

They turned a corner and walked straight into a goblin, knocking a large pile of papers out of his hands.

“Sorry!” Haley jumped back in surprise. The goblin looked up at her, irritated. He was wearing black robes and a very striking, if very tatty, red cloak.

“It’s all right.” His tone of voice made it very clear that it was _not_ all right. “Do you mind helping me pick up these papers?”

Haley and Durkon bent down, picking the papers up and helping the red-cloaked goblin shuffle them back into a vague order.

“Thank you very much,” he said stiffly, before walking around the corner and out of sight.

Haley stared after him.

“Fancy cloak he had.”

“’E’s pro’lly an ambassador or sumthin’,” Durkon said. “Come on, lass, we’ll be late fer lunch if we dally much longer.”

Durkon set off down the corridor towards the Great Hall. He could smell the overly-large helpings of lunch from where they were. Haley did not immediately follow. Instead, she waited until Durkon was out of sight, then opened her hand. A piece of crumpled-up paper was in it. She opened it carefully.

“’The Talisman of Durokan’?” she quoted. “I wonder.”

She glanced back down the corridor to make sure that Durkon hadn’t gone back for her, then turned and ran towards the library.

\---

“So when did Ulber the Ugly start his rebellion?”

“Uh… fourteen fifty-seven?”

Nale sighed.

“Thirteen fifty-seven.”

Elan slammed his book shut. He flopped dramatically backwards in his chair.

“I’m gonna fail History of Magic.”

Nale put his own book down and folded his arms.

“Elan, it is the _third week._ ”

“That’s the point, though,” Elan explained. “If I’m whining about it dramatically on the third week, then the rules of drama state that by the end of the year I’ll pick up a second wind and pass.”

“Elan, that’s _preposterous._ ”

It was Elan’s turn to sigh dramatically. He sat upright and leant over the table towards his brother.

“It’s not. See, this is _clearly_ the boarding school genre with a heavy dash of fantasy, and we’re eleven. And neither boarding school stories or fantasies involving eleven-year-olds end badly. And it’ll be a bad end if I got in big trouble for failing. _So,_ it’s going to work.”

 Nale took a moment to digest this. He went through about a thousand different facial expressions before settling on complete and utter befuddlement. At a few points, he almost said something, then realised that saying anything at all would be playing into what Elan had said, and he did _not_ want to do that.

In the end, he settled for:

“You’re sounding like Dad.”

Elan gasped.

“ _Really?_ ”

Before Nale could respond further, Haley Starshine spoke up.

“Do either of you know where the section on magical items is?”

The twins almost jumped out of their skins.

“Hi Haley!”

“Where’d you – oh, never mind.” Nale shrugged. “I think that depends on what kind of magical item you’re trying to learn about…”

“It’s an amulet. I was doing background reading and noticed it, but the book didn’t really explain what it _did._ It was made by a seriously powerful wizard called…” She screwed up her face, trying to remember, “…Durokan?”

Nale coughed.

“Do you mean the Talisman of Dorukan?”

“That was it!”

“Try a book on taming magical beasts.”

“Thanks, Nale! You’re the _best._ ”

Haley turned and walked off towards the nature section. Nale stared after her.

“…you have a crush!”

Nale went bright red and spluttered.

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

A few people around the room glared at Nale for shouting. He went even redder and turned to Elan.

“You so do have a crush on her! You were staring at her!”

“You’re wrong.”

“Aww, Nale, you can trust me!” Elan patted him on the shoulder.

“I do not have a crush on Haley,” Nale replied tersely, “I have a crush on _Sabine._ Now shut up and let’s get back to goblin rebellions…”

\--- 

“…Miss Starshine?”

“ _What._ ”

Haley was sitting at a table in the library, surrounded by books about magical beasts and beings. There were noticeable bags under her eyes, and a couple of pages of notes next to her.

“Master Thundershield informed me that you were not present at dinner, and asked me to find you.”

Haley groaned and put her book down.

“Yeah, I guess I’ve been here for too long. Help me put the books away?”

Vaarsuvius picked up a large stack of books and started putting them back in their proper places on the shelves. They happened to read the title of one of the books that caught their eye.

“ _The Containment and Command of Magical Beasts?_ ” they quoted. “This is not on the syllabus.”

“Private research,” Haley answered. “Hey V, you’re smart, right?”

“I have been informed repeatedly that I am, yes.”

“If I was looking for information on something, and I couldn’t find it anywhere in the section it’s meant to be in… where else would I look?”

Vaarsuvius raised an eyebrow.

“What, pray tell, are you seeking?”

Haley sighed and pulled the bit of paper she’d stolen from the goblin out of her pocket. She unfolded it and showed it to Vaarsuvius.

“I found this bit of paper dropped in the library,” she explained, “and I’m trying to find where it came from, but I don’t want to bother the librarian. She scares me.”

Vaarsuvius looked the piece of paper over.

“If I had to guess,” they said, “I would say the Restricted Section. But only seventh-years are allowed in there. Just return it to the librarian; it would be simpler.”

“Okay, gotcha… I’ll do it tomorrow. Thanks, V.”

\---

Several hours later, Haley was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling of the dorm room. Everyone around her was asleep, but she couldn’t even close her eyes.

She took the paper out and looked at it again.  

  _The Talisman of Dorukan_

_In all the world, there exists only one object that can control all magical beasts without fail – the Talisman of Dorukan. When worn by a witch or wizard, it grants simple mental control over all beasts over a vast radius. It was historically used by its creator, Alexander Dorukan, to protect the treasure vaults which he called home. Since Dorukan’s death, however, the talisman has been moved from location to location…_

The page Haley had stolen ended there.

 _The power to control all magical beasts,_ she thought. _Someone out there’d pay a high price for that. And if I could strike a deal with them…_

She knew how to work the black markets; had done since she was a little girl, barely at her father’s knee, accompanying him on his ‘business’. And come on; the wizarding markets couldn’t be that different, could they?

And if she could sell the talisman, and convert the Galleons to pounds…

Well. Uncle Bozzok always said he’d bust Geoff Starshine out if he had the cash, right?

She sighed. There was only one thing for it.

She was going to have to break into the Restricted Section.


	6. It's Raining, It's Pouring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a rainy day, romance begins, Haley furthers her plans, and Roy undergoes a very nasty revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one. I just couldn't find the right place to end it. I apologise for the slight infodumping near the end, I'm trying to avoid that but I couldn't find a way around it.

It was raining.

This was to be expected. After all, Hogwarts was located in Scotland. It rained in Scotland with a regularity that was almost depressing. There were many days in which people would find themselves confined to places with roofs that blocked the rain. It was an experience which all people of the British Isles – Muggle or magic – had felt.

Although, not everyone stayed inside when it rained. Some people had errands to run. Others had jobs to do. On a Sunday in October, however, most students of Hogwarts School just wanted to stay indoors. Perhaps in the Great Hall, where they could watch the rain without feeling it, or the common rooms, where they could bond with housemates.

Vaarsuvius didn’t have a lot of the latter. Most people had found them stuck-up even for a Slytherin pureblood. The only people in the house who talked to them on a regular basis were Nale Tarquinson (whom Vaarsuvius found charming if odd), Z Dmitriyev (if you could call the occasional one-word answer ‘talking’), and Belkar Bitterleaf (whom Vaarsuvius loathed).

Speaking of which.

“Bitterleaf,” Vaarsuvius said in a disbelieving tone, “it is precipitating at a most alarming rate, and you are going outside when you could be staying _in?_ ”

Belkar shrugged. “Yeah. And?”

“Nothing, save that you shall catch a cold and I shall _laugh._ ” Vaarsuvius turned back to their scroll of parchment.

“Hey, purple, I have a question,” Belkar said. “When was the last time you actually went outside of your own free will?”

Vaarsuvius pretended to consider the question. Then they seriously considered it.

“I am not sure.”

“Figures. You should try it. Who knows, you might actually stop looking like a roll of paper wearing a wig!”

Belkar darted out before Vaarsuvius could reply.

*

Durkon had not gone to the Great Hall. He had also not stayed in the Hufflepuff common room. Instead, he was staring out of the window at the lake.

_No,_ thought the blonde girl who’d spied him sitting in a windowsill, _he’s glaring._

She hesitated, considering leaving him be… but her interest was piqued now.

“Hey!” she said. Durkon turned his head and saw her. “What’re you glaring at?”

“I’m nae glaring,” he replied. “I’m watching.”

She walked over and looked out the window. When she looked, she saw nothing in particular to watch. Oh, except maybe the really short kid paddling in the shallows of the lake. She did hope they were wearing shoes. Although, she couldn’t really see them well through the rain pattering against the window.

“What’re you watching?”

Durkon looked at her incredulously.

“Can ye nae tell?” he replied. “Tha _trees_ , lass!”

“Oh! The Forbidden Forest!” She nodded. “Don’t worry. Professor Greenhilt says that nothing comes out of there – and if it did, Professor Scoundrèl and Professor O-Chul would deal with it.”

He shook his head.

“I’m nae worried aboot what’s in tha forest, I’m worried aboot tha _trees._ ” Durkon raised a hand and pointed out the window at the forest.

The girl stared for a while.

“…Okay, sure,” she said. “You’re Durkon, right? I saw you in Potions the other day…”

He nodded. “An’ ye?”

“Hilgya – Hilgya Firehelm.” She smiled. Durkon felt his cheeks go slightly red. “Nice to meet you.”

“An’ ye.”

The two looked back out of the rain-soaked window, unsure of what to say next.

“Hey, Durkon,” Hilgya said, “what’s that lad doing down by the lake…?”

Durkon tore his eyes away from the trees and stared down at the lake. He sighed deeply.

“Don’ ask, lass…”

*

Haley scowled.

After far too much effort, she had finally gotten hold of a map of Hogwarts. This had proved surprisingly difficult. Firstly, she’d been informed that there was only one fully accurate map of Hogwarts in existence, and it was _not_ available. Then she’d asked for the “next best thing”, which had required money – something she did not have a lot of and was loathe to part with.

So, she’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to figure out how to get the map.

Many errands later, she finally had it.

And it made no sense.

Not being able to map the stairs was expected. They did move, after all. The fact that certain rooms were literally Unplottable (yes, individual rooms) was irritating, but not wholly surprising when she thought about it. But why was one of the girls’ bathrooms labelled DO NOT ENTER in bright red ink? Why did one room change dimensions and contents depending on who was using it?

And whose bright idea was it to stick a dorm full of hungry kids next to the kitchens full of overly-helpful elves?!

On the plus side, the section of the map that dealt with the library was very useful for her purposes. As it turned out, there was more than one entrance – she didn’t have to go through the main library. And every single bit of the Restricted Section was labelled carefully! Oh, it really was a treasure…

“May I trouble you for a moment?”

Haley looked up to see Vaarsuvius standing over her, a very perplexed look on their face.

“Go ahead,” Haley replied, quickly folding the map so that V couldn’t see what she was looking at. Vaarsuvius sat down next to her and put their books haphazardly on the table. “What’s eating you?”

“Does my face look yellow?”

Haley looked Vaarsuvius up and down.

“No. Why?”

“Master Bitterleaf earlier informed me that I looked like parchment wearing a wig. Since then, I’ve been worried about my physical condition. Was he jesting?”

“Uh, this is Belkar we’re talking about, I mean – oh, wait.” Haley clicked her fingers. “Did he say paper or parchment?”

“Ah… I believe paper was his exact terminology, why?”

“That explains it. Muggle paper is white. You’re really pale.”

“Muggle paper is _white?_ ” Vaarsuvius looked completely astounded. “How on earth do you make it white? Does it not yellow in the making?”

“Oh, it’s kind of complicated – HEY! Put that back!”

Sabine Iferna had walked up to Haley while she was distracted and started looking at the map. She quickly put the piece of paper covering the library back in place.

“I was curious, is all, sheesh.”

Haley pulled the map away from Sabine furiously.

“Next time _ask._ ”

“Gee, sorry.”

There was a brief and silent standoff between the two girls, wherein they sized each other up. (During this time, Elan walked up to them with the intent to ask a question, felt the tension, and silently backtracked. No one noticed him.) The silence was eventually broken by Haley.

“You’re Nale’s friend, right?”

“Kinda. You’re Elan’s friend, right?”

“Kinda.”

The silence continued for a moment longer, before Sabine walked off silently, arms folded.

“What was _her_ problem?” Haley said aloud.

“What was yours?” Vaarsuvius replied. “All she did was look at your map.”

“It’s more than that,” Haley explained. “I had a bad feeling about her. A really bad feeling. And usually, when I get a bad feeling about someone, there’s a reason.”

Vaarsuvius wrinkled their nose.

“Indeed. You are paranoid.”

“No, I can… sense peoples’ motives. It’s a gift. And hers are way bad.” Haley gestured to the maps. “Why was she so interested in my maps, huh? Why didn’t she _ask?_ ”

Vaarsuvius did not reply for a long moment. Perhaps they were trying to be tactful. Haley went back to her mapreading and note-taking.

The somewhat awkward silence was eventually broken by the sounds of a gigantic commotion outside the Hall. Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran to the doors, craning around to see what precisely was going on. Haley pushed her way through the crowd, darting between older students until she could see. A red-cloaked goblin was having a very loud argument with – of all people – Professor Shojo.

“Look, I don’t damn well care what that cat says,” he shouted in a voice too loud for such small lungs, “this is an _outrage!_ That pendant belongs to the goblin people, and I _will_ see it returned!”

“I’m very sorry,” replied Professor Shojo crossly, his white cat purring in his arms, “but there is absolutely nothing I can do. It’s the Ministry of Magic’s business, not mine.”

“Even though you were the one entrusted with it?”

“Yes.”

The goblin’s lip curled, then he turned on his heel and walked away towards the main entrance to the castle. Professor Shojo stared after him. Then he noticed the students.

“Don’t you all have work to be doing?”

The gathered students dispersed almost as quickly as they had appeared. Haley and Vaarsuvius returned to their seats.

“With whom was Professor Shojo speaking?” Vaarsuvius asked after a minute.

“A goblin. Come to think of it, I saw him the other day.”

“Really? Are you sure it was the same goblin?”

Haley nodded. “He was wearing a red cloak. It looks expensive but really old and a bit tatty.”

“Interesting. Well, I do wonder what the pendant he mentioned – AUGH!”

Haley turned so fast that her head nearly came off from whiplash. Someone had put a group of very wet and very alive frogs into Vaarsuvius’s bag. Thankfully, there were no books or scrolls in there, but that still left the purple-haired Slytherin with a rather noticeable frog problem.

The sound of quick-moving footsteps heralded Elan’s arrival. (He had totally forgotten his earlier question.) His eyes were wide with concern.

“Are you okay, V?”

“ _BITTERLEAF!_ ” Vaarsuvius shrieked. “Damn that snotty, selfish, careless brat! I should have known this was his motive for leaving the castle upon such a dreary day!”

Elan looked over the table to see the frogs. “Oh! Do you need some help in taking them outside?”

A few minutes later, Elan, Vaarsuvius and Haley were out in the rain, releasing frogs. Or rather, Elan and Haley were in the rain. Vaarsuvius had stayed just within the school where it was dry. In return, they had to hold Elan and Haley’s bags while the latter two carried the frogs down to the lake.

“I don’t get it,” Elan said, “why do Belkar and V hate each other so much?”

“Well, Belkar did bite V,” Haley replied. “That’s bound to make you dislike someone. I think it just went from there.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll all stop soon! It’s just a silly fight. It happens all the time! My mum told me that.”

Elan said this with the most innocently confident smile Haley had ever seen. She was almost convinced by it. Almost.

“Or maybe they’ll just keep it up until someone drags them apart. Like the teachers. Or Roy, he seems pretty keen on stopping them from killing each other.”

“And then they’ll be friends! Oh, and then everyone can be friends together. Belkar and V and Roy, and me and you and Durkon, and Nale and Sabine, and Nale’s friends Thog and Z too!” He nodded vigorously. “It’ll be great!”

Haley laughed.

“You have got to be the most optimistic person I’ve ever met.”

“Uh-huh! I mean, what’s the point in being a downer about things? Life’s boring that way!”

They had come to the edge of the lake by this point. Haley bent down and let the frogs in her arms go. They ribbitted and hopped off into the mud. The red-haired girl stood back up and carefully took Elan’s frogs one-by-one, not entirely trusting him to put them down himself after the incident where he’d pulled himself out of a trick step and fallen down three flights of stairs. (Nale had run after him in a panic the entire way down.)

“There they go!” Elan said, half-waving after them. “Man, someone needs to talk to Belkar about this kind of thing. Pranks are funny, but what about the poor frogs?”

“You think he cares?”

 “Well, maybe not. But I think he might if we talked to him.” Elan turned to Haley, brushing his sopping wet hair out of his eyes. “See, my mum said that everyone has something good about them. So even Belkar has to be good somewhere. And if we can talk to the good part of Belkar and the good part of Vaarsuvius, we can get them to keep fighting.”

Haley almost laughed.

“You really think everyone’s good?”

“Yeah!” Then he paused and considered. “I mean, some people are more good than others. Like, you’re more good than Belkar. You’re really good!”

Haley went bright scarlet.

“R-really?”

“You helped the frogs, even though you got wet. So you’re good!”

Haley hoped that the rain was concealing her face, though she wasn’t sure that it mattered. Surely a face that hot would turn even cold autumn rain to steam!

*

Many hours and seven floors later, the Gryffindor common room was deserted. Deserted, that is, except for Roy Greenhilt, who was sitting on the sofa in front of the fire, reading a large book about magic as applied to weaponry. Everyone else had gone to bed. This was fortunate, because it meant that everyone else missed Professor Eugene Greenhilt’s sudden appearance.

“You’re up too late.”

Roy groaned and lowered his book in a huff.

“You’re not a Gryffindor.”

“I’m a ghost and a teacher, I can go where I please.” Eugene floated over to Roy. “And here was me thinking you’d given up on books.”

“Gee, I wonder why I’d do _that_?”

Eugene rolled his eyes. “That was an accident and you know it. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What?”

“There’s not a lot I can do about this because I’m dead and I have a full-time job, but you’re in the perfect position to deal with it so I’m afraid you’re going to have to.” Eugene waved his wand and an image of a golden pendant appeared in the air. “This pendant is somewhere in the school. You _need_ to find it, and soon.”

“Why? It’s just a necklace.”

“You remember how I told you about how I used to be an Auror?”

“Yeah.”

“And how I told you about that battle I had with the dark wizard Xykon?”

“Yeah, about a million times.”

“It contains his soul. And if his followers get it back, he’ll come back.”

Roy dropped his book.

“Wait, wait,” he said, voice shaking, “are you talking about the Xykon who killed the head of the Aurors? The one who almost took over the whole country with an army made from dark magic? The guy who – who burnt down Lirian’s Refuge, and _killed you?_ ”

“How many other dark wizards have you heard of called Xykon?”

Roy was shaking now. He pulled himself up, staring his father in the eye.

“Why are you telling _me_ this? Why not Professor Shojo, if it’s in the school, or someone at the Ministry? Why _me_?”

Eugene sighed wearily. “Years ago, I got myself into a binding magical contract to stop Xykon coming back if I had any power to do so. If I didn’t have any power to do so, it passed to my closest heir. You’re my oldest child, so that’s you. And I don’t have any power to do so. Xykon likes to mess around with the dead in his magic, he’d have me without even looking at me. So it has to be you.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then he comes back and takes over the world!” Eugene threw his hands up in despair. “And you literally can’t say no!”

Roy tried to respond – then realised that his father was right. No matter what he tried to make himself think, his mind kept coming back to the pendant. He knew the terms; he had to do something.

Silently, Roy picked his book up, glaring at his father the entire time.

“Would’ve been nice to know earlier.”

“It wasn’t a problem _earlier_.”

Roy turned and stalked off up the stairs to the boys’ dorms. When he got to the room he shared with the other first-year boys, he silently got changed. He climbed into bed, drawing the curtains around him, and then lay on his front.

Haley Starshine spent the night squealing into her pillow.

Roy spent it screaming into his.


	7. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haley breaks into the Restricted Section. Then things go wrong. Also, Vaarsuvius gets their own back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why, but this chapter was hard to write.

The next day, Belkar woke up to find that someone had sprayed most of his possessions with a strong-smelling and extremely floral perfume. His bedcovers, books, parchments, and bags all smelt like roses and lavender.

The resulting scream woke up everyone else in Slytherin house.

“Oh good god,” Nale choked, fingers pinching his nose, “what is that _smell?_ ”

“It all smells like flowers!” Belkar yelled. “Everything smells like flowers!”

Z was muffling his laughter with his hand. Nale graciously got out of his bed and tried to help Belkar clean the perfume off of some of his things. In the process, they found a neatly-written note in bright red ink: _I would invite you to consider your actions more carefully in the future. Amphibians do not belong in schoolbags, no matter how amusing you may have considered my reaction to have been. – V.I._

“Amphibians in schoolbags?” Nale pulled a face. “Disgusting, but actually pretty funny.”

“I’m gonna kill that purple-haired arse,” Belkar muttered, scrunching the letter up with one hand. “How did they even get into the dorm? Did they get someone to do it for them?”

Belkar looked around the room at his classmates, who all very quickly shook their heads.

“Perhaps it was Peeves,” Nale suggested, “he might’ve gone along with it…

“That poltergeist, right?” Belkar considered it. “Sounds about right.”

“No,” Z said quietly. Belkar almost jumped out of his skin. Z _never_ talked. “Peeves can’t go into dorms. Bloody Baron’s orders.”

“Then how did V pull it off?” Nale wondered aloud.

“Don’t care.” Belkar glared at his perfume-stained Potions textbook. “They’re dead either way.”

*

_Later that night._

*

Hogwarts was an eerie place in the middle of the night. The wind whistled through every nook and cranny of the castle, putting a chill into the late-night air. Haley shivered, and wrapped her cloak a little more tightly around herself. Her plan for the night was simple: get into the Restricted Section and find _anything_ on the topic of the Talisman of Dorukan. She even had a pretty good idea of where to look.

All she had to do was get there without being spotted. The ghosts made that slightly harder – what if Professor Greenhilt or god forbid _Peeves_ found her? – but at least there weren’t any other students around at this time of night.

Haley slipped past the entrance to the kitchens quickly, hoping that there were no house-elves around. Luckily, they were all either asleep or out in other parts of the castle. She treaded carefully over the stairs. By this point, she knew where all of the trick steps were.

Not everyone did, though.

“I-is someone there?”

Haley froze in the darkness. That voice sounded very familiar.

“Um… whoever you are, can you help me? I got my foot stuck.”

Oh, it couldn’t be, could it?

Haley turned quietly to see Elan Tarquinson standing on a nearby staircase, one foot stuck in a trick step, his schoolbag over his shoulder.

She considered leaving him be. Someone finding out about her night-time activities could be a problem. At the same time, though, Elan was a sitting duck for anyone who wanted to mess with him, like Peeves. And he was kind of cute…

Haley sighed, and darted out of the shadows towards Elan.

“Oh, it’s you!” Elan smiled, teeth glimmering despite the darkness. “I was worried for a minute there.”

“Shush! Do you want to get caught?”

Haley hopped over the trick step and slung her arms under Elan’s. Then she pulled. After a moment of grunting, his foot came out with a _pop._

“Thanks!”

Elan and Haley carefully went down the stairs, avoiding the step.

“Why are you down here by the Great Hall?” Haley asked. “Shouldn’t you be in the Ravenclaw dorms?”

Elan scuffed his shoe on the ground.

“They changed the riddle, and I can’t figure it out,” he admitted. “So I can’t get into the common room. I was looking for somewhere to sleep.”

Well, that explained why he had his bag with him, and why he was still in his school robes. What it didn’t explain was how Haley was meant to get away from him to get into the library!

“Why’re you up, Haley?” he asked. Then, “Oh, is that parchment for schoolwork? Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

Damn him!

“…I’m going to the library,” she said after a moment. “There was a book I wanted to look at, and it’s really bugging me. I can’t sleep, so…”

“Oh, okay! Hey, do you think I could sleep in the library?”

Bless him. Haley almost wanted to ruffle his hair.

“I don’t know, Elan,” she said. “Maybe you could sleep in the kitchens. I don’t think the house elves would stop you. They’re not far from here, actually.”

Elan’s face lit up.

“Ooh!”

“Come on, then. But be quiet, okay?”

Haley led Elan through the dark corridors of the castle, towards the warmth of the kitchens. She was pretty sure that Elan wouldn’t rat her out. Probably.

“Here you go,” she said, pointing down the small flight of steps that lead to the kitchen door. “Just knock on the door, and say that you can’t get into your dorm. They should help you.”

“Cheers, Haley!”

Haley nodded at him, then turned on her heel and returned quickly to her work. Perhaps her movements through the castle were less stealthy this time. After all, she’d lost precious minutes escorting Elan to somewhere he could sleep.

Luck was on her side. She made it to the library without being spotted (though she had to hide from Peeves at one point). The door was quickly unlocked, as while it was proofed against magic the librarian had apparently not realised that Muggles had invented magicless lockpicks. Haley put her lockpicks back in the pockets of her robes, then took out a set of uncracked glowsticks.

_Sure,_ she thought, _Professor Aarandius said that electronics don’t work in Hogwarts. But glowsticks aren’t electronic, right?_ It was the whole reason she’d brought them with her. You never knew what might come in handy in this line of work.

Haley cracked the glowsticks, one by one. To her delight, they lit up in all their many colours. She curved them into bracelets and clipped them around her wrists, then slipped into the Restricted Section.

It was quiet; very quiet. Haley didn’t dare think that it was _too_ quiet, because that was just asking for trouble. Someone less genre savvy, though, probably _would_ have thought it was too quiet. Nothing in the section save Haley was moving at all. No, scratch that – a couple of books were shifting slightly. Those ones were all chained up.

…Haley left them alone.

The section on magical creatures was, thankfully, close to the door Haley had used. She took out of the piece of paper she’d pilfered from the goblin, and held it up. It looked like it came from a mid-sized book, with thick paper.

There were a few of those.

Haley sighed and got to work, taking books off the shelf and checking through them. Some were obviously wrong, like the ones describing dangerous magical creatures. A few seemed to have guidelines on controlling magical creatures, but they weren’t the right books.

Finally – she found it. _A History of the Taming and Mastery of Magical Beasts._ It was a decent-sized book, full of methods for containing magical beasts. Most of it didn’t concern Haley, but the illustrations and appearance of the book were just right. She checked her page again – page 163 – and turned to that place in the book –

– to find that the entire section on the Talisman of Dorukan was missing.

A crash came from nearby. Haley dropped the book she was holding and turned to see Haley Starshine standing there, staring at her.

Wait, _what?_

Yes, it was dark, but Haley felt as if she was looking into a mirror. Admittedly, the imposter didn’t seem to be perfect, but it was clear who they were meant to be.

“What the hell?” Haley – the real one – said aloud, stumbling backwards. The imposter also seemed alarmed, but they stepped forwards not backwards. Before Haley could stop them, the imposter grabbed the book from the floor and stuffed in their own bag.

“Hey!”

Haley lunged forwards to grab the now-retreating imposter’s arm. She curled her other fist –

“Ooooh, is there someone here? Students out of bed?”

Haley and the imposter both froze. That had been Peeves’s voice!

“Look,” said the imposter quietly in Haley’s voice, “neither of us want to get caught by Peeves, so let me _go_ and we’ll get out of here, okay?”

Haley considered it. Peeves started whistling. She let go of the imposter’s arm, turned, and made for the door she’d used to enter. A _crash_ and a peal of cackling alerted her to Peeves’s presence behind her. Damn, why couldn’t he have gone for the imposter Haley?

She got through the door and slammed it behind her, then realised that Peeves could phase through walls. So, she kept running, heading for the entrance to the Hufflepuff dorms.

“Is that an ickle firstie?” Peeves laughed again. Haley used a word that would have had Bozzok washing her mouth out with soap and ducked around a corner, and then immediately into a classroom. She shut the door behind herself and turned to hide –

Roy Greenhilt was staring at her in confusion. He was sitting at one of the desks, a book in front of him.

“…Roy? What are you doing here?”

“I was about to say the same thing to you!”

“Hiding from Peeves.”

Roy winced.

“You can stay.”

Haley gave him a grateful smile and pulled up a chair next to him. Curiosity got the better of her, and she looked over at his book. It seemed to be about a wizard by the name of Xykon.

“What’re you doing?”

“Reading.” Roy turned back to his book.

“Couldn’t you do that in your common room?”

Roy pulled a face.

“You’ve clearly never tried studying in the Gryffindor common room.”

“You’re right, I haven’t.”

Roy looked up at her again.

“So wait,” he said, “why are you out of bed, how did you get on Peeves’ bad side… aren’t those _glowsticks?_ ”

“I was trying to read a book in the Restricted Section,” Haley admitted. “Hey, do you know if doppelgangers exist?”

Roy thought about it for a moment.

“I think I remember my dad mentioning something like that, but that was when he was alive… Wait, why were you trying to read a book in the Restricted Section?” He shook his head. “The books there are dangerous!”

“Researching something,” she not-really-explained.

Roy raised an eyebrow and fixed her with a stare. It was the kind of stare Haley knew well – her dad used to give it to her when he knew she was hiding something.

“…Did you ever hear of the Talisman of Dorukan?”

“The talisman of _who?_ ” Roy began flicking through the book he was reading. “Give me a moment… Here we are.”

He’d turned the book to a page detailing a battle between the wizards Xykon and Dorukan, which had resulted in Dorukan’s death. There was a rather grisly illustration accompanying it.

“That’s him!” Haley realised. She breathed a sigh of relief – this hadn’t been worthless. “Who’s this Xykon guy, anyway?”

“The short version is, he’s a dark wizard from a long time ago. He died, but there’s rumours he’s getting his powers back, and he’s got some help from different places. And my dad was under a vow to stop Xykon no matter what.”

“Oh, so you’re helping him?”

“Not exactly.” Roy sighed. “The curse transfers onto the nearest heir upon death.”

“ _Oh._ Awkward.”

“Yeah, I hate my dad.”

There was a long silence, while the pair of them put two and two and two together.

“So,” Haley said, “this Dorukan guy made a talisman to control all magical beasts without fail…”

“…and this book says that the Talisman was entrusted to the care of an anti-Dark Magic organisation after Dorukan’s death at Xykon’s hands,” Roy added, scanning the page with his eyes.

Haley reached into her pocket and pulled out the page.

“I got this off a red-cloaked goblin that dropped it,” she explained. “I got curious about it, so I looked it up in the library. The entire chapter was missing. Then the book got stolen by someone who looked almost exactly like me.”

Roy _hmmed._

“Right as Xykon is coming back to power – wait, red-cloaked goblin?”

“Yeah. And?”

“Goblin rebel leaders always wear red cloaks,” Roy said. “Belkar and I stumbled onto that during a study session…”

They exchanged significant glances in the dark. Haley was the first to speak.

“Goblin rebels and doppelgangers, both after a magic talisman, and there’s a dark wizard coming back from the dead?”

“We should probably mention this to someone,” Roy said.

Haley shifted uncomfortably.

“…Like your dad?”

“Hell no. Although…” Roy started counting off on his fingers. “Professor Shojo’s useless, Professor O-Chul would send _you_ up the creek without a paddle, Professor Aarandius doesn’t listen to students…”

“Professor Scoundrél?” Haley suggested. “I don’t think anyone would listen to us, though.”

“Especially since my dad says no one believes that Xykon is coming back except a couple of people,” Roy said. “He could tell because of the vow nagging him before his death, but that’s not enough to make other people listen.”

Haley groaned.

“ _Great._ ”


	8. The Prank War Begins (And Haley Gets In Trouble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are consequences for actions. Vaarsuvius and Haley both learn this the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really busy. Sorry. I'll try to be more frequent, but no promises!

“Hey, blondie, where’d you get that pie?”

Elan swallowed the mouthful of cherry pie he was eating and looked down to see Belkar staring up at him curiously. They were standing near the entrance to the Great Hall. Cold air was whipping past them from the castle doors.

“The house elves gave it to me!” Elan opened his bag and showed Belkar the enormous quantities of pie that he had obtained from the elves the previous night. “Want one?”

“Uh, yeah, if you’re offering.”

Elan handed Belkar an apple pie, wrapped in grease paper. Belkar put it carefully in his bag. Then, an idea occurred to him.

“Hey,” he said, a smile appearing on his face, “do you think I could take one to Vaarsuvius…? I bet they like pie…”

Elan grinned.

“Sure, you can take one for V!” Elan handed Belkar a plum pie, which was safely stored alongside Belkar’s apple pie. “How nice of you!”

“Yeah, sure, I’m gonna go find Purple. See ya!”

Belkar turned and ran off towards the Slytherin dungeons. Elan watched him go, chewing thoughtfully on his cherry pie. Then he shrugged and turned to look into the Great Hall. It was surprisingly busy for a Saturday afternoon. The students had not divided themselves into their houses, and were sitting scattered around the hall. Some even sat on the tables. Elan wondered why no one was stopping them… oh, the only teacher in the hall was Professor Scoundrél. Yeah, he wasn’t likely to care about that.

So. Cool.

Haley and Roy were sitting at the Gryffindor table, arguing about something. Elan wandered over to sit with them. He couldn’t catch their conversation over the din of the hall, but if it had been quieter, he might have heard something like this:

“So you’re telling me,” Haley said, “that your dad refuses to get involved unless he has to because it’s not his job anymore?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Roy replied, poking at his parchment with a quill. “He says that the oath is my responsibility now.”

“You’re eleven.”

“Yeah.

“I don’t like your dad – oh, hi, Elan!”

Elan sat down next to Haley, swallowing the last mouthful of his pie. It had been a _good_ pie. Maybe he should go and get some more later. Surely the house-elves wouldn’t mind!

“What’re you guys talking about?” he asked.

“Long story,” Roy said. “Don’t worry about it – do I smell pie?”

Elan nodded and pulled two more pies out of his bag.

“Thanks.” Roy took one pie. “Where did you get these?”

“The house elves gave them to me,” Elan replied with a grin. “I had to sleep in the kitchens last night. I couldn’t get into the common room.”

Haley took the other pie. Before she could eat it, however, Professor O-Chul marched into the room and went right up to Haley.

“Professor Shojo wants to see you in his office,” he said to her. “Now. Come with me.”

Haley went pale as a sheet. She wrapped up the pie in a bit of cloth, then stuffed it in her bag and followed Professor O-Chul. Her nails dug so far into her palms that she thought for a moment her hands might bleed. The moment she’d left, Elan turned to Roy, eyes wide.

“What’s going on?”

Roy’s eyes were fixed on the open doors.

“She’s probably in a lot of trouble,” he replied.

“For what?” Elan’s gaze snapped back to the door. “What did she do?”

“Erm…” Roy looked at Elan. “It’s a bit of a long story…”

“She’s not in trouble for leaving her dorm last night, is she?” he asked, looking at Roy with pleading eyes. “I would’ve spent the night in the cold if it wasn’t for her!”

There was an awkward pause. Elan put two and two together. He gasped and sprang out of his seat. Many people were pushed over by his scramble for the doors of the Great Hall. Professor Scoundrél looked after him curiously as Elan darted out of the doors and away.

*

They knew.

How did they know?

Had Peeves ratted on Haley? He hadn’t even seen her face, had he?

Oh god, _had he?_ She’d had her back to him the entire time…

Damn it, damn it, damn it. Now she was almost certainly in detention for months for breaking into the Restricted Section, leaving her with no time at all to chase the Talisman. Or stop Xykon. Or investigate the doppelganger.

Damn it.

Oh, Professor O-Chul had stopped.

They were standing in front of a large statue of a gryphon, which itself blocked the way to a spiral staircase which Haley assumed led to Professor Shojo’s office. She curled her fists tighter.

The gryphon looked at Professor O-Chul expectantly. He coughed and said clearly,

“Salmon.”

To Haley’s surprise, the statue got up and moved out of the way, allowing O-Chul and Haley access to the stairs. O-Chul ascended them quickly, Haley lagging behind as far as she dared. She considered bolting, but realised it wouldn’t help.

At all.

At the top of the stairs was a wooden door, and behind that – Professor Shojo’s office. The man himself was sat behind his desk. His cat was curled up on an elegant-looking cushion on the desk. It appeared to be fast asleep. At the sound of people entering the room, however, it opened its eyes and regarded the newcomers lazily.

“Thank you,” Professor Shojo said to his colleague. O-Chul nodded and walked out without a word, closing the door behind him.

It was very quiet in the office for a moment, while Haley gathered up her courage. Then, she walked up to the desk.

“Miss Starshine,” said the Professor. “Last night, someone broke into the Restricted Section of the library. They stole a book containing a great deal of very dangerous information on magical artefacts. It is not something to be taken lightly.”

Haley said nothing, but stared at the desk. Not at the cat, though. Its gaze was creepy.

“Mr Scruffy here,” continued the headmaster, “has been informed by a reliable source that you were seen near the library last night, when you were supposed to be in bed.”

Mr Scruffy meowed as if in assent.

“And according to some of your housemates, you stayed up extremely late last night.”

Haley said nothing, setting her face into a mask. Professor Shojo looked at her closely, then sighed.

“Listen, I understand. You’re a girl from a, shall we say, less than ideal situation who’s suddenly been thrust into a magical world. I know that it feels like an adventure, but you can’t just – ”

The door slammed open. Haley turned to see Elan standing there, panting for breath.

“It wasn’t her,” he said. “I heard about the break-in at the library, but it wasn’t Haley, she was with me!”

“Oh?” Professor Shojo seemed very amused. “Would you mind explaining?”

Elan took a moment to catch his breath.

“I have loads of trouble with the riddles,” he explained, “so sometimes I can’t get into the dorms at night, and I told Haley about that. So she said that if I had any problems I should go talk to her, and that’s why she stayed up late, in case I showed up at the Hufflepuff dorms looking for her. She showed me to the kitchens, and I slept there.”

He reached into his bag and took out a pie (mince this time).

“See? The house elves gave me those, just ask them!”

Professor Shojo took the pie from Elan and looked it over as if it contained the secrets of the universe within its crust. Then, he set it down on the desk. There was an odd glimmer in his eyes.

“Do you mind if I keep the pie?”

“Uh, of course not.”

“Thank you.” Professor Shojo smiled. “Well then; I think I will trust that this was some sort of misunderstanding. In the future, please realise that the portrait will accept an answer of ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know’, as that apparently shows the wisdom to know when you’re beaten.”

“Ohhh, really?” Elan nodded. Haley felt her heart slow a little. Was she really getting away with it?

“The two of you can go, but I will be keeping an eye on you. Just in case.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Haley said.

The two students turned and left the office behind. They quickly made their way down the stairs and past the statue (which gave Elan a very funny look as it returned to its post).

“That was _brilliant,_ ” Haley said, once she thought they were in the clear. “Seriously, you’re really good at bluffing. But – I told you I was going to the library!”

“Yeah, but you’re a good person,” Elan replied, leading her back towards the Great Hall. “And I thought I owed you for helping me yesterday. But…”

He stopped and turned to her, suddenly serious in a way that was almost comically out of character.

“Did you steal it?”

Haley shook her head.

“This is gonna sound ridiculous, but it was a doppelganger.”

“A what?”

“…Someone who looked almost exactly like me. I ran into her in the library, we were after the same book. I just wanted to take notes, but she took the book and ran.”

Elan gasped in shock.

“So there’s two Haleys? And one’s stealing books?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Elan looked as if he’d just been told that fairy godmothers existed, Peter Pan wanted to take him to Neverland, and the moon really _was_ made of cheese. Despite the strangeness of the situation, it seemed that he entirely believed Haley. In fact, he wanted to believe it.

“What was that book even about?”

Haley was about to respond when she was cut off by Roy’s sudden appearance from down the corridor.

“You two!” He walked up to them quickly, clearly concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Did you know that there’s two of Haley?” Elan said.

“Yeah, she told me.” Roy looked slightly befuddled.

“So do _you_ know what was in the book that Haley Two stole?”

Haley and Roy _looked_ at each other.

“…We’re going to have to tell him, aren’t we?” Haley said.

Roy sighed dramatically and waved for Haley and Elan to follow him.

*

_Meanwhile, in the library._

*

Durkon took one look at Vaarsuvius and burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” said the purple-haired Slytherin, whose face was at that time covered in the filling of a plum pie. “It’s really not funny.”

“Yer _face,_ ” Durkon said between chuckles. “I assume it were Belkar’s doin’?”

“I am not even sure how he _reached,_ ” Vaarsuvius admitted. “That being said, do you happen to know of the location of the nearest lavatory? I need to wash my face.”

“Well, thar’s a lad’s down thar,” Durkon said, pointing, “or a lass’s down _thar…_ ”

Vaarsuvius sighed.

“At this rate, I am going to have to draft a strongly-worded correspondence upon the topic of gender-neutral bathrooms.”

“I’ve got a bunch o’ tissues in me bag.”

“Thank you.”

Durkon handed Vaarsuvius the tissues. The taller kid took them and wiped their face down the best they could without water. They still looked a little purple, but then again they always looked purple.

“Why’d he do it, I wonder?” Durkon said.

“I sprayed all of his possessions with a perfume I obtained from an older student,” Vaarsuvius explained. “This was after he placed live amphibians into my bag when I was distracted.”

Durkon had a sudden awful feeling that this was going to be a recurring pattern. He could see a never-ending prank war in his mind’s eye.

“Maybe ye ought ta let this go.”

Vaarsuvius laughed.

“Certainly not! He may have begun this, but I shall finish it with my victory!”

“Och.”

Vaarsuvius threw the now-dirty tissues in the bin and picked up their bags. An irritated smirk danced across their face.

“I shall have to plot my revenge carefully,” they said, “but I cannot wait too long else the brat will think he’s won. Please excuse me.”

Just as Vaarsuvius walked away, Hilgya Firehelm appeared from behind a bookshelf. Durkon smiled at her wearily.

“Hullo, Hilgya.”

“Hi, Durkon!” She came and sat down in the chair across from him. “What was that about?”

Durkon sighed and set his quill down.

“Do ye know anything aboot prank wars? I think I need ta stop one before it gets oot of hand.”

To Durkon’s surprise, a sly grin crept over Hilgya’s face.

“Why, I _do,_ ” she said. “Do tell me what your problem is…”

*

Elan Tarquinson was nothing if not a good listener. Tell him a good enough story and he would sit enraptured. He would gasp in all the right places and await your every word with bated breath. So of course, the story of doppelgangers, goblin rebels, ancient evil wizards, and talismans of power immediately caught his attention and held it.

When Haley and Roy’s story was done, he took a moment to digest it.

“We don’t think anyone’s going to believe us,” Roy admitted. “All we really have are implications, and most people think that Xykon’s been finished off anyway. I mean, he’s no Voldemort.”

Elan nodded.

“So… _we_ need to find the talisman.”

Haley tactfully said nothing. Roy looked at Elan strangely.

“What?”

“If that Xykon guy or the goblins get it, it’d be bad, right? And the fake Haley probably isn’t up to much good either. So, we need to find the talisman ourselves and stop them from getting it!”

“Yeah, and how do you plan to do that?” Roy said with a huff. “The doppelganger has the book, which was missing the chapter on the talisman _anyway._ ”

Elan thought for a minute.

“There’s a magic room in the castle which becomes anything you want it to,” he said. “If we went to that room, we could ask it to give us books on the talisman!”

Now Haley and Roy were _really_ listening.

“That could work,” Haley said. “Assuming the room you found can _do_ that…”

“It’s up on the seventh floor, I can show you now!”

Elan got up out of his seat in the abandoned classroom, slinging his bag over his shoulders. Haley and Roy quickly followed him as he almost skipped out of the room with a quick _come on guys, it’s this way!_

None of them noticed Vaarsuvius standing near the door to the room. They had just been passing by when they’d caught the tail-end of the conversation.

“A room that gives you anything?” they said aloud, musing. “Now, that could be useful…”

A wicked grin spread over their face.


End file.
